Critics of the recent PCS strike have their numbers wrong – cuts pose a real threat to vulnerable, low-paid civil servants, says Mark Serwotka in todays GuardianI read with dismay the two articles on Comment is Free written during our 48-hour strike on 8 and 9 March. The first, by the pseudonymous "Kurt Chapman", is a frightening combination of mathematical inaccuracy and personal attack. PCS members are not the dupes of my ego, as he insultingly suggests, but well-informed and dedicated public servants who know precisely what an attack on their terms looks like, and overwhelmingly supported the strike. If the ethereal Kurt wishes to join the debate he should discard the cloak of anonymity.
Phillip Inman, like the cabinet office minister Tessa Jowell, talks about bringing the civil service into line with the rest of the public sector, but there is no attempt to do this on pay. That renowned friend of the workers Margaret Thatcher agreed our redundancy terms, which recognised that our pay rates are lower than elsewhere. Civil servants earned an average salary of just £22,850 last year, lower than the averages in both the rest of the public sector and in the private sector.
It seems only a levelling-down of workers' entitlements is OK. Yes, some workers have worse conditions, but as our rep Andy Thomas pointed out in a media interview yesterday, "that's an argument for everyone in the country to be paid the minimum wage, it's an argument for everyone in this country to sleep under Waterloo Bridge".
People join unions to defend their interests against employers' attempts to attack their terms and their job, and to stop an employer-driven race to the bottom on pay, pensions and other terms and conditions. PCS members have contractual rights, and they are determined to defend them. The action on 8 and 9 March was tremendously well supported, showing the depth of feeling on this, with rallies in every region and widespread media coverage.
To compare civil servants with fat-cat bankers getting bonuses of millions on top of six- or seven-figure salaries, as Philip Inman does, is like comparing common assault with genocide. Few of my members will recognise the picture painted of "generous pay, homes and sundry benefits". Bailed-out banks, which caused this whole economic crisis, are giving away billions in taxpayers' cash to already ludicrously wealthy individuals.
Like his anonymous companion, Inman also gets his maths wrong, and my union would love to meet the actuary who came up with his pension figures of a civil servant paid £30,000 enjoying a £20,000 pension. The average civil service pension is just £4,200.
Any civil servant earning more than £20,000 will be worse off under the government's proposals. Anyone leaving on voluntary terms will also see a potential cut, and for most people the entitlement to an early pension is lost. And because of these savings, everyone's job is more vulnerable because entire workforces will be cheaper to sack or to privatise – and all three parties are telling our members that's what's in store.
Nearly 100,000 posts have been lost in the civil service in the last five years, and this attack on redundancy terms makes every single member more vulnerable. The reality of those working in the civil service is one of lower pay than in the rest of the public sector and the private sector, and considerable job vulnerability.
The government's motivation is crude cost-cutting, not justice for the low-paid or equity for the young. None of the proposed savings are being recycled into better pay or better pensions for the young. They are part of the grand redistribution from taxpayers and all workers to prop up the bank-led casino economy, which the government was lauding right up until it collapsed causing this crisis, and seems determined to excuse from any reparations now.
The message from PCS members, echoing around Europe, is that we will not pay for the failure of the bankers and the politicians who deregulated and let it happen. Attempts to create false divides between young and old or public and private will not wash. The people of the UK know they are being fleeced not by low-paid civil servants, but by fat-cat bankers and their compliant politicians.
